Bryony Kimmings with her nine-year-old niece Taylor in Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model

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Feminist Bryony Kimmings headlines ReadingLive: a celebration of International Women’s Day on Saturday.

She talks to Reading Post features editor Caroline Cook about pop stars and role models

Stuck in a world of twerking teens and pop princesses with barely any clothes on Bryony Kimmings was in despair.

Pop culture was riddled with fake boobs and too much make-up, and it got her thinking about the role models we dish out for our younger generations.

“It’s not that there are no good role models, there are lots of sports role models and things but pop culture role models can be a very limited version of what women are like and they are all very objectified,” she says, talking to me while catching a bus with her 11-year-old niece Taylor.

Taylor is a big part of this story, but we’ll get to her in a moment.

“It’s definitely not saying there are no role models but that in the ones offered by pop culture, ones which most young people look at, women are quite limited,” continues Bryony.

I wonder whether it is down to male music bosses, a clash of genders played out across the radio, but Bryony disagrees.

“I don’t think it’s because men are in charge because there are a lot of women working in those industries. It’s sex sells, and it’s money,” she says frankly.

“At the moment, especially because the music industry is in a period of flux, it’s not making any money. They have to work out what is making money and it’s music videos.

“To get people to watch them do you spend millions making it imaginative or do you make it sexy and get people to talk about it and get lots of views? It’s the easiest thing to get people to engage... if you don’t have any ethics.”

It was during a visit to a school two years ago that Bryony overheard a conversation between a group of young girls which spurred her determination to do something about the pop culture chaos.

“I was talking to some kids about the age of my niece and one of the kids said she wanted to be in TOWIE,” she says. “She pretended to put a bag on her shoulder and have a little dog.”

The image is both funny and repulsive, young girls aspiring to be the click-clacking women who strut on to television, winning fame and fortune for what often seems to be very little skill.

“She was given a list of personality traits and she had to chose five from it,” explains Bryony. “She chose things like kindness and determination and success. It was all of the things she wanted to encapsulate. And she drew pictures of what she wanted her to look like and sound like.”

Catherine Bennett doesn’t look like Lady Gaga or Rihanna.

She wears stylish clothes but they’re not revealing, her hair is blonde and curly, and she wears glasses. She looks like a bubblegum popstar, the kind parents probably wish their children were aspiring to be. I wonder what Catherine Bennet would make of Miley Cyrus’s foam finger, crotch-grabbing antics on the VMAs.

“She just feels if that’s what they want to do they should be allowed to do that,” says Bryony. “That was one of Taylor’s stipulations.

“And she was not allowed to sing about love either.”

Instead Catherine Bennett sings about the future and friendship.

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When the project was taking off Catherine Bennett appeared everywhere from Woman’s Hour to Vogue, having her songs played on Radio One and even being invited to discuss activism with Yoko Ono.

Stage show Credible, Likeable, Superstar, Role Model, which was created alongside the project, was a massive hit at the Edinburgh Fringe.

“It’s quite funny and quite dark,” says Bryony, talking about the show which will be performed as part of ReadingLive at South Street on Saturday.

“Sometimes Taylor is wearing ear defenders in the show. There’s a lot of material kids don’t mean to hear or see. She’s the idea that we are doing this and there are always children around everywhere.”

The show is strictly for adults, promising to be as brutally honest as Bryony’s previous works Sex Idiot and 7 Day Drunk, but she has also created The Catherine Bennett Show for ages 6+ which she has been touring round schools.

“Our aim all along was to get her as much exposure as possible,” says Bryony. “A lot of the press has been adult press. I would much prefer to be on the front of Girl Talk than Women’s Hour.”

Does she think Catherine Bennett can pave the way for better role models in pop culture?

“I hope so,” she says, although she adds that with the music industry in such a state of flux, she’s not sure if bosses would take the risk.

After a successful few months The Catherine Bennett project is winding down a bit now but Bryony says both she and Taylor won’t be forgetting her in a hurry.

“I think we’ve both made some good memories so when she’s my age and I’m 60 we will be able to say ‘remember when we did that’,” says Bryony. “I think it’s been really good for the whole family. We all sort of celebrated every time something brilliant happened and cried when something like Miley twerking happened.”

ReadingLive - a celebration of International Women’s Day

Credible, Likeable, Superstar Role Model will be the finale of ReadingLive, a celebration of International Women’s Day at South Street Arts Centre on Saturday, from 7.30pm.

Liz Allum, director of the TAG Collective which is helping to organise the event, explains what people can expect:

“TAG Collective are curating a line up of local artists for International Women’s Day event ‘Reading LIVE’ with Strength Collective and South Street Arts Centre.

“From an open call out to artists who identify as female and are based in Berkshire, we had a fantastic response.

“Before the event begins and during the half hour long interval, four fantastic artists will be performing their interactive works.

“The four artists who were finally chosen all bring something unique to the event.

“Laura Mathis, a local theatre maker, dancer and artist is creating a specially commissioned video piece about identity.

“This will be projected across the wall, with headphones for those who want to hear the audio.

“Kate Lewis has built a huge egg structure, plush with padding and seats. Audiences can slip off their shoes and step inside to watch a video of her dance piece exploring motherhood and family generations.

“Amy Pennington will be drawing, live in the space, whilst audiences drink and chat during the interval.

“She will draw one continuous picture of all the women that inspire her and as audiences arrive and have a drink, they can contribute images of the women in their lives who inspire them.

“Shehnoor Ahmed is a multimedia artist, and invites audiences to step inside a booth and dance with her through the woods.

“International Women’s Day provides a unique opportunity to celebrate the fantastically creative women of Reading and Berkshire, and provide new platforms to showcase their work, raise their profile, and hopefully inspire others to get creative.

“In a way, it’s irrelevant that all the performers at this event are women, but in a time when female role models for young girls are increasingly questionable it has never been more important that they are all women!”